Be prepared for the snow!

That’s what the Rocky River Home Depot Assistant Manager, Mathew Vellky is advising people to do before the snow gets too much to handle this weekend. Particularly with snow blowers, Vellky said too often many people wait until it’s too late.

“They wait until the first snow of the year to test it out,” said Vellky, “so it's a situation where a night like tonight before the storm hits, make sure it starts up, make sure it works, make sure your spark plugs, make sure there's oil and gasoline in it and make sure it's ready to go and make sure any of the filters or maintenance is done on it because, yeah a lot of times what happens is immediately after the storm someone goes to fire it up and a lot of times the snow blower doesn't work or it needs some maintenance,”

The Assistant Manager said the store saw some traffic of people preparing for the snowfall Friday, but it’s the “reaction crowd” he described, they're expecting in full force Saturday. That, as you may have guessed, is the crowd rushing to get supplies once the snow is already down and blanketing the ground.

“Just for your own safety, to be prepared ahead of time is the way to do,” said Vellky talking about the dangers of traveling in inclement weather.

Meanwhile in places like the Independence ODOT yard, trucks were packed with salt.

There was no need to pretreat the roads this time around so drivers began their shifts at 10 p.m. Friday night. ODOT Spokesperson Molly Leonard told NewsChannel 5 they’ll be fully staffed once again this weekend with around 80 crews on the road.

Leonard described the breakdown to be 15 plows to Lake County, 15 plows to Geauga County and 50 plows will be operating in Cuyahoga County.

“Right now in all of our facilities we do have 52-thousand tons of salt ready to go right now if we were to need it,” said Leonard.

A City of Cleveland Spokesperson also issued a statement saying they will be ready with trucks this weekend:

Overnight tonight the Division will staff 26 drivers to focus on main and secondary mains as temperatures are expected to remain below freezing. Saturday there will be 45 crews scheduled to work on both first and second shifts to keep main and secondary mains passable throughout the snow event. All salt domes are filled or nearly filled to capacity.

Updates will be available as the forecasted snow event progresses.

Visit ready.gov for more information on how to make an emergency plan and supply kit. Pay attention to local news for weather advisories and visit http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/ and clecityhall.com for up-to-date information from the City of Cleveland.